Impacts of Climate Change on Snow Avalanche Activity Along a Transportation Corridor in the Tianshan Mountains

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Abstract

Snow avalanches can repeatedly occur along the same track under different snowpack and meteorological conditions during the snow season in areas of snow avalanche activity. The snowfall, air temperature, and snow cover can change dramatically in a warming climate, causing significant changes in the snow avalanche risk. But how the risk of snow avalanche activity during the snow season will change under a warming climate remains an open question. Based on the observed meteorological and snowpack data from 1968 to 2021 and the snow avalanche activity data during the 2011–2021 snow seasons along a transportation corridor in the central Tianshan Mountains that has a typical continental snow climate, we analyzed the temporal distribution of the snow avalanche activity and the impacts of climate change on it. The results indicate that the frequency of the snow avalanche activity is characterized by a Gaussian bimodal distribution, resulting from interactions between the snowfall, air temperature, and snowpack evolution. In addition, the active period of wet snow avalanches triggered by temperature surges and high solar radiation has gradually moved forward from the second half to the first half of March with climate warming. The frequency and size of snowfall-triggered snow avalanches showed only a slight and insignificant increase. These findings are important for rationally arranging snow avalanche relief resources to improve the risk management of snow avalanche disasters, and highlight the necessity to immediately design risk mitigation strategies and disaster risk policies to improve our adaptation to climate change.

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Re-epithelialization and immune cell behaviour in an ex vivo human skin model

Ana Rakita, Nenad Nikolić, Michael Mildner … (2020)

A large body of literature is available on wound healing in humans. Nonetheless, a standardized ex vivo wound model without disruption of the dermal compartment has not been put forward with compelling justification. Here, we present a novel wound model based on application of negative pressure and its effects for epidermal regeneration and immune cell behaviour. Importantly, the basement membrane remained intact after blister roof removal and keratinocytes were absent in the wounded area. Upon six days of culture, the wound was covered with one to three-cell thick K14+Ki67+ keratinocyte layers, indicating that proliferation and migration were involved in wound closure. After eight to twelve days, a multi-layered epidermis was formed expressing epidermal differentiation markers (K10, filaggrin, DSG-1, CDSN). Investigations about immune cell-specific manners revealed more T cells in the blister roof epidermis compared to normal epidermis. We identified several cell populations in blister roof epidermis and suction blister fluid that are absent in normal epidermis which correlated with their decrease in the dermis, indicating a dermal efflux upon negative pressure. Together, our model recapitulates the main features of epithelial wound regeneration, and can be applied for testing wound healing therapies and investigating underlying mechanisms.

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The European mountain cryosphere: a review of its current state, trends, and future challenges

Enrique Morán-Tejeda, Samuel Morin, Mohamed Naaïm … (2018)

The mountain cryosphere of mainland Europe is recognized to have important impacts on a range of environmental processes. In this paper, we provide an overview on the current knowledge on snow, glacier, and permafrost processes, as well as their past, current, and future evolution. We additionally provide an assessment of current cryosphere research in Europe and point to the different domains requiring further research. Emphasis is given to our understanding of climate–cryosphere interactions, cryosphere controls on physical and biological mountain systems, and related impacts. By the end of the century, Europe's mountain cryosphere will have changed to an extent that will impact the landscape, the hydrological regimes, the water resources, and the infrastructure. The impacts will not remain confined to the mountain area but also affect the downstream lowlands, entailing a wide range of socioeconomical consequences. European mountains will have a completely different visual appearance, in which low- and mid-range-altitude glaciers will have disappeared and even large valley glaciers will have experienced significant retreat and mass loss. Due to increased air temperatures and related shifts from solid to liquid precipitation, seasonal snow lines will be found at much higher altitudes, and the snow season will be much shorter than today. These changes in snow and ice melt will cause a shift in the timing of discharge maxima, as well as a transition of runoff regimes from glacial to nival and from nival to pluvial. This will entail significant impacts on the seasonality of high-altitude water availability, with consequences for water storage and management in reservoirs for drinking water, irrigation, and hydropower production. Whereas an upward shift of the tree line and expansion of vegetation can be expected into current periglacial areas, the disappearance of permafrost at lower altitudes and its warming at higher elevations will likely result in mass movements and process chains beyond historical experience. Future cryospheric research has the responsibility not only to foster awareness of these expected changes and to develop targeted strategies to precisely quantify their magnitude and rate of occurrence but also to help in the development of approaches to adapt to these changes and to mitigate their consequences. Major joint efforts are required in the domain of cryospheric monitoring, which will require coordination in terms of data availability and quality. In particular, we recognize the quantification of high-altitude precipitation as a key source of uncertainty in projections of future changes. Improvements in numerical modeling and a better understanding of process chains affecting high-altitude mass movements are the two further fields that – in our view – future cryospheric research should focus on.